By using the
indefinite article in her film's title, calling it "A Teacher" instead of "The Teacher," writer-director Hannah Fidell
positions it as an emblematic tale, just one of many stories about an
inappropriate relationship between an instructor and a student. And it's true that the affair it depicts
between high school AP English teacher Diana (Lindsay Burdge) and 17-year-old
senior Eric (Will Brittain) seems familiar in a tabloid-news sort of way. But by withholding detail and context, the
movie reduces its characters to cyphers and robs itself of dramatic punch.

With a minimalist
approach, Fidell picks up the story in
medias res, with surreptitious assignations taking place in backseats and
borrowed bedrooms, and furtive glances during school seemingly unnoticed. It's only when they're nearly caught in the
act that Diana seems to realize the recklessness of her behavior, which sends
her teetering over an emotional precipice.

Burdge manages to make Diana a compelling enigma at times, but Fidell
becomes overly reliant on her determined, thousand-yard-stare (usually while
jogging) to communicate the vaguest sort of psychological disrepair.

There's a brief
reference to Diana's family background—she's estranged from her ailing mother—but
other than that neither character is given any depth or history. And since we're never privy to how their
relationship began, there's no sense of what, if anything, is at stake for
them. The movie's only seventy-five
minutes long, so it's not as if adding a few first-act scenes would make it bloated
or overlong.

It's clear that
Fidell meant to craft a nonjudgmental, non-exploitative exploration of this taboo
situation. And she deserves credit for
avoiding both tawdry melodrama and earnest moralizing. But by refusing to judge or exploit, she
ultimately ends up without much of interest to say on the topic.